NEF is the UK's leading think tank promoting social, economic and environmental justice. Our aim is to transform the economy so that it works for people and the planet.

The UK and most of the world's economies are increasingly unsustainable, unfair and unstable. It is not even making us any happier – many of the richest countries in the world do not have the highest wellbeing.

Saamah Abdallah

Saamah is Senior Researcher at the Centre for Well-being, where he has worked since its foundation in 2006. He has worked extensively on the Happy Planet Index, and was lead author of the most recent reports. He has also been involved in other measures of both national and local progress, and is part of Eurostat’s Quality of Life Expert Group. Currently, Saamah’s main projects include BRAINPOoL – an EU funded project looking at the opportunities and barriers to alternative indicators being used in policy making, and the evaluation of the Big Lottery Fund Well-Being Programme. Saamah is particularly interested in how the science of well-being can inform research into pro-environmental behaviour and value change, and a more sustainable economy. He is also interested in getting public engagement in the question of how we measure societal progress.

Saamah has an academic background in the natural sciences, having graduated from the University of Cambridge in Experimental Psychology, and having worked for two years as a research assistant, in Cambridge and at the University of Barcelona. He has also completed an MSc. in Democracy and Democratisation at University College London, where his dissertation explored views of deliberative democracy. Saamah also has a strong background in non-formal education, having worked in this field in the UK, Poland and Spain.

Outside of work, Saamah has a passion for travel (for example, he spent 2011 living and working in Latin America), theatre, and cycling.